This is a weblog related to community activities going on in Brighton, MA, one of the neighborhoods of Boston. Ours is a large and diverse community including many long-term residents, recent immigrants, and students attending the local universities.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Past Contributions to Allston-Brighton Election Campaigns

Campaigns for elected office in Allston-Brighton have been surprisingly expensive in the recent past, according to public filings with state and city agencies.

The last time a State Legislature seat was open, in the 2005 special election to replace Representative Brian Golden, more than $150,000 was raised or contributed out of the candidates' own pockets. And when the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council seat was last open in the 2002 special election following the death of Brian Honan, nearly $200,000 was raised by the candidates or loaned by them to their campaigns.

Four of the six candidates for the Allston-Brighton District City Council race have run for office before, raising a whopping $163,000 among them in their last run for office. Tim Schofield leads the field, having raised more than $65,000 in his 2005 race for State Representative; Mark Ciommo is a distant second at more than $37,000 in his 2002 campaign for City Council.

If past campaign contributions are any indication, the current election campaign for City Council promises to be an expensive one.

Personal Contributions to Campaigns

Several candidates have sunk large amounts of their own money into their previous campaigns. Ciommo wins this "John Corzine" award, having put $14,500 of his own cash into his 2002 campaign in four loans from "Mark and Laura Ciommo" dated 8/14/02, 8/20/02, 9/14/02, and 12/5/02. The last loan for $7,500 appears to have been to keep the over-spent Committee to Elect Mark Ciommo out of the red after the election; three payments to "ETC Consulting" totalling $13,067 were made between 11/26/02 and 12/11/02. The 2002 loans totalling $14,500 appear to have been personally expensive, since public records indicate that they represent 23% of his 2006 salary of $62,730 as Executive Director of the Veronica Smith Senior Center.

Tim Schofield takes second place in this "Corzine" category with a single $10,000 personal loan to his campaign on 2/25/05.

Personal contributions or loans to election campaigns are typically not restricted, while contributions by other individuals are limited by State law to $500 per person per year to a particular campaign. Most campaigns that receive "loans" from the candidates themselves will list those loans as both receipts and liabilities; well after the race, the loans may be officially forgiven, thereby turning it into a personal contribution to the campaign. Councilor Jerry McDermott bucked this trend on 6/7/05 and 11/15/05 he repaid $15,000 of the $25,000 in loans he had previously made to his campaign committee on 9/5/02 and 10/29/04.

Paper vs. Electronic: Follow the Money (or not)

Candidates for Boston district city council seats file their campaign finance reports on paper, unlike the candidates for at-large seats on the council, mayor, state legislature, and state-wide offices, who are required to file electronically with the Masschusetts Office of Campaign and Public Finance. What this means is that the only way the public can access campaign finance reports for the Allston-Brighton District City Council race is to go, in person, to the Office of the City Clerk at City Hall. The reports can be inspected for free on-the-spot, or copies made for -- get this -- 50 cents per page. (I had to take a few hours off of work to visit the City Clerk during their business hours.)

Since the District City Council candidate finance reports are not available electronically, it is difficult to generate statistical data on who those contributors are. Harry Mattison has noted that only a small fraction of Tim Schofield's and Gregory Glennon's contributions in the 2005 State Representative campaign came from people living in A-B zip codes 02134 and 02135. Similar analysis of Ciommo and Hanlon's contributions hasn't been performed, but cursory inspection of the reports indicates that they have far higher percentages of contributions coming from individuals living in A-B zipcodes.

The origin of this difference in donor zipcode is unclear. Could it represent outsiders contributing to campaigns to further their own interests which may be in conflict with A-B's interests? Or is it a reflection of who has lived most, or all, of their life in A-B (e.g., Ciommo and Hanlon)? Mattison worries that the former might be true, but I speculate that the latter is far more probable. Lobbyist and other special interest contributions appear to flow into campaign war chests after the individual has been elected to office, although this point is difficult to substantiate because of the failure of so many candidates and office-holders to properly document the occupations of their contributors -- even though legally required to do so (or at least request the information in writing a minimum of three times) when the contribution is $200 or more in a calendar year.

Tables Summarizing Past Campaign Contributions by Candidate in A-B

Here are tables the summaries of campaign contributions for past elections. In each case, the contributions represent sums of those detailed in reports filed eight days prior to the preliminary (or primary) election, reports filed eight days prior to the final (or general) election, and reports filed at year-end for the election year.

2002 Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council Special Election

Candidate

Raised

Own_Money

John A. Bruno

5,115.00

1,163.00

Cathleen Campbell

6,396.00

0.00

Mark S. Ciommo

37,925.00

14,500.00

Gary W. Dotterman

5,219.07

0.00

Rosie Hanlon

10,315.62

1,273.82

Jerry McDermott

57,462.76

10,000.00

loan repaid on 11/15/05

Dan McLaughlin

19,685.83

1,500.00

Mark David Trachtenberg

2,753.50

3,929.18

Arturo Vasquez

8,410.00

15,260.11

loan + credit card expenses liabilities

---------------------

---------

-------

Total

153,282.78

+ 46,626.11

= 199,908.89

2005 Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council Election

Candidate

Raised

Own_Money

Jerry McDermott

37,790.00

0.00

Also reimbursed on old loans

Paul Creighton

13,250.00

5,000.00

Daniel Kontoff

210.00

0.00

---------------------

---------

-------

Total

51,250.00

+ 5,000.00

= 56,250.00

2005 State Representative Special Election

Candidate

Raised

Own_Money

Michael Moran

56,284.46

500.00

Timothy Schofield

65,641.05

10,000.00

Gregory Glennon

19,680.00

4,100.00

---------------------

---------

-------

Total

141,605.51

+ 14,600.00

= 156,205.51

Funds Raised by 2007 A-B District City Council Candidates in Their Last Run for Office